TY - JOUR A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Ruffing, Eva T1 - Networking for autonomy? National agencies in European networks JF - Public Administration N2 - The environment of national agencies has changed considerably in recent years as they increasingly become engaged in European Union networks. This article contributes to a growing body of literature on those networks and their effect on executive politics at the national level by asking whether and how the EU involvement of national agencies affects the agencies' autonomy in policy formulation. We develop an analytical model for explaining the effect of EU involvement on agency autonomy. Analyzing data from a comprehensive survey of federal agencies in Germany, we find that EU involvement has a positive effect on national agencies' policy autonomy. Moreover, we find a somewhat stronger effect of agency involvement in sectoral networks on autonomy than in intergovernmental networks, which is attributed to information asymmetries between ministries and agencies. Yet this effect is weaker than initially expected, which can be explained by a considerable degree of overlap between different types of EU involvement. KW - Administrative Networks KW - Agency Autonomy KW - European Integration Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2012.02093.x SN - 1467-9299 VL - 91 IS - 3 SP - 712 EP - 726 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken (NJ) [u.a.] ER - TY - BOOK A1 - Bach, Tobias T1 - Autonomie und Steuerung verselbständigter Behörden: Eine empirische Analyse am Beispiel Deutschlands und Norwegens N2 - Es gibt seit einigen Jahren eine internationale politik- und verwaltungswissenschaftliche Diskussion zu strukturell verselbständigten Behörden außerhalb der Ministerialverwaltung („Agencies“). Ausgangspunkt ist die Beobachtung, dass bei der Ausgestaltung der Steuerungsbeziehungen zwischen Ministerien und Behörden erhebliche Unterschiede festzustellen sind, die sowohl zwischen Behörden eines Landes als auch im internationalen Vergleich bestehen. Tobias Bach untersucht am Beispiel Deutschlands und Norwegens, wie sich nationale Reformverläufe einerseits und organisatorische Merkmale wie Struktur und Aufgabe andererseits auf Steuerungsbeziehungen auswirken. Die empirische Analyse stützt sich auf standardisierte Erhebungen, die im Rahmen des internationalen Forschungsnetzwerkes COBRA („Comparative Public Organization Data Base for Research and Analysis“) durchgeführt wurden. Y1 - 2014 UR - http://www.springer.com/springer+vs/politikwissenschaft/book/978-3-658-04298-1 SN - 978-3-658-04299-8 PB - Springer VS CY - Wiesbaden ER - TY - BOOK A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Fleischer, Julia A1 - Hustedt, Thurid T1 - Organisation und Steuerung zentralstaatlicher Behörden. Agenturen im westeuropäischen Vergleich N2 - Organisation und Steuerung nachgeordneter Behörden – mittlerweile auch Agenturen genannt – zählen in der internationalen Verwaltungsforschung wie auch der Verwaltungspraxis seit einigen Jahren zu den vieldiskutierten Themen. Dieser Band resümiert die neueren Forschungserkenntnisse zu nachgeordneten Behörden in Deutschland, Großbritannien, den Niederlanden und Schweden. Die AutorInnen diskutieren zentrale Argumente der Reformdebatten sowie die Errichtung, das institutionelle Design und die Aufgaben dieser Behörden. Rechtstraditionen, Politikstile sowie aufgabenspezifische Merkmale liefern wichtige Erklärungsbeiträge für die Entwicklung und Position nachgeordneter Behörden in diesen Ländern. Ebenso wird ergebnisorientierte Steuerung über Leistungsvereinbarungen, Leistungsindikatoren und Berichtswesen in den Untersuchungsländern unterschiedlich umgesetzt. Im Ergebnis zeigt sich, dass auch in Deutschland erste Schritte sichtbar werden, sich vorsichtig einer »neuen Steuerung« zu nähern. Der internationale Vergleich bietet zahlreiche Anhaltspunkte, welche Probleme und Möglichkeiten mit der Organisation und Steuerung moderner Behörden verbunden sein können. Y1 - 2010 SN - 978-3-8360-7234-2 PB - Edition Sigma CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Ruffing, Eva A1 - Yesilkagit, Kutsal T1 - The Differential Empowering Effects of Europeanization on the Autonomy of National Agencies JF - Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institution N2 - This article examines the influence of Europeanization on the relationship between ministries and agencies at the national level. The core argument is that the differentiated nature of the international environment (with policy development often transferred to the international level and policy implementation left at the national level) transforms national agencies into policy-developing actors that shape policies without being directly influenced by their national political principals. The increasingly common involvement of national agencies in European policymaking processes thereby increases these agencies' policy-development autonomy but does not change their role in policy implementation. We examine this argument by testing an innovative hypothesis—the differentiation hypothesis—on a combined data set of German and Dutch national agencies. Our empirical findings support the hypothesis in both countries, suggesting that similar effects can be expected in other contexts in which semiautonomous agencies are involved in transnational policymaking. Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12087 SN - 1468-0491 VL - 28 IS - 3 SP - 285 EP - 304 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken (NJ) [u.a.] ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bach, Tobias T1 - The autonomy of government agencies in Germany and Norway: explaining variation in management autonomy across countries and agencies JF - International Review of Administrative Sciences N2 - This article reports the results of a comparative analysis of the human resources management (HRM) autonomy of government agencies in Germany and Norway. Whereas the academic literature largely focuses on ministry–agency relations in countries where agencies have been only recently established, these two countries have a long tradition of delegation to agencies outside ministerial departments. However, although sharing a broadly similar administrative tradition, each country differs with regard to the management reform trajectory. This allows an empirical test to be carried out of the effects of management reforms on HRM autonomy, drawing on survey data. The article also discusses the literature on how task characteristics and formal agency structure supposedly affect agency autonomy and puts these claims to an empirical test. The empirical analysis reveals cross-country differences, a somewhat limited effect of task characteristics, and a clear effect of formal structure on de facto HRM autonomy, especially in the German context. KW - Administrative tradition KW - Agency autonomy KW - Delegation KW - Formal structure KW - Political control KW - Task characteristics Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852313514527 SN - 0020-8523 VL - 80 IS - 2 SP - 341 EP - 361 PB - Sage CY - London [u.a.] ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Ruffing, Eva T1 - Bürokratische Koordination im europäischen Mehrebenensystem: Die Einbindung nationaler Regulierungsbehörden in europäische Verwaltungsnetzwerke JF - dms: der moderne staat N2 - Transnationale Netzwerke nationaler Behörden haben vor allem innerhalb der Europäischen Union (EU) in den letzten beiden Jahrzehnten erheblich an Bedeutung gewonnen. Die Forschung dazu konzentriert sich jedoch überwiegend darauf, Arbeitsweise und Einfluss dieser Netzwerke auf europäischer Ebene zu untersuchen. Der Artikel untersucht administrative Netzwerke aus der bisher vernachlässigten Perspektive nationalstaatlicher Behörden. Er leistet dabei einen Beitrag zu zwei zentralen Forschungsfragen: Zum einen wird die Behauptung zunehmender europäischer Einbindung empirisch untermauert. Zum anderen wird für vier wichtige deutsche Regulierungsbehörden ein Mapping der Einbindung und institutionellen Verfestigung europäischer Verwaltungsnetzwerke durchgeführt. Dabei wird gezeigt, dass es typische Muster der Netzwerkbildung gibt und dass unterschiedliche Formen von Netzwerken oftmals nebeneinander bestehen bleiben. KW - Europäisierung KW - Verwaltungsnetzwerke KW - Regulierungsbehörden KW - Netzwerkbildung Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3224/dms.v7i1.16237 SN - 1865-7192 VL - 7 IS - 1 SP - 75 EP - 94 PB - Budrich CY - Leverkusen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Jugl, Marlene A1 - Köhler, Dustin A1 - Wegrich, Kai T1 - Regulatory agencies, reputational threats, and communicative responses JF - Regulation & Governance N2 - A key claim in bureaucratic reputation literature is that reputation has several dimensions. This presents agencies with a difficult choice concerning which dimension(s) they should emphasize in the management of their reputation. This paper analyzes how regulatory agencies manage their reputation through communicative responses to public judgments, based on a singlecase study of the German financial regulator BaFin. Our theoretical argument underscores the importance of different reputational dimensions for regulatory agencies that simultaneously considers their distinct reputation reserves. Our main finding was that BaFin prioritizes responses to public judgments targeting reputational dimensions that are central to its mission and for which the agency has a weak reputation, as opposed to judgments targeting dimensions that are central to its mission and for which it has a strong reputation, or judgments targeting peripheral dimensions. The paper demonstrates the importance of agency missions for reputation management and suggests directions for further research. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12421 SP - 1 EP - 16 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Jugl, Marlene A1 - Köhler, Dustin A1 - Wegrich, Kai T1 - Reputational threats and democratic responsiveness of regulatory agencies T2 - The Accountability of Expertise N2 - This chapter studies decision-making behaviour of independent regulatory agencies. Theoretical accounts of delegation to regulatory agencies emphasise that losses of political accountability of regulators are traded off against potential gains in regulatory efficiency. The theory of credible commitment suggests that independent (non-majoritarian) regulatory agencies are more effective in regulating markets than organisations under direct political control. However, independent regulatory agencies operate in a political context and need to demonstrate their benefit to a diverse set of stakeholders, including elected politicians. We are hence confronted with a ‘paradox of autonomisation’ according to which more autonomous public organisations have to take into consideration external demands to a greater degree than less autonomous organisations. Independent regulatory agencies will thus be subjected to high … Y1 - 2021 SN - 9781003175490 SP - 81 EP - 98 PB - Routledge CY - London, New York ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Hustedt, Thurid ED - Shaw, Richard T1 - Chapter 23: Policy-making in the executive triangle: a comparative perspective on ministers, advisers, and civil servants T2 - Handbook on Ministerial and Political Advisers N2 - This chapter seeks to bridge existing research on the politicisation of top civil servants and the roles of ministerial advisers by proposing a new conceptual approach for the comparative analysis of executive policy-making. We conceive of the executive triangle as a set of interdependent relationships between ministers, civil servants, and advisers. Those relationships may take different forms, depending on the distinct tasks performed by each actor and their roles in policy-making, which define mutual expectations. Thus understood, the executive triangle is an institution performing particular functions in policy-making (such as assessing policy alternatives, anticipating political support, and coordinating with other actors both inside and outside government). Those functions are performed by actors within the triangle and reflected in their roles and their direct and indirect relationships. The chapter conceptually explores such a system-perspective on the executive triangle; sketches analytical dimensions for understanding similarities and differences of executive triangles across contexts; provides empirical illustrations of variations of the executive triangle in Europe; and develops a research agenda using this concept to better understand the roles of ministers, ministerial advisers, and top civil servants in executive policy-making in a comparative perspective. KW - Civil servants KW - Comparative public administration KW - Executive triangle KW - Ministerial advisers KW - Policy advice KW - Politicisation Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800886582.00034 SP - 338 EP - 351 PB - Edward Elgar Publishing CY - Cheltenham, UK ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hammerschmid, Gerhard A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - van Thiel, Sandra A1 - Steiner, Reto T1 - Administrative Tradition and Management Reforms: A Comparison of Agency Chief Executive Accountability JF - Public Management Review N2 - This article investigates perceived accountability patterns of national agencies’ chief executives in four countries with a Rechtsstaat tradition and tests theoretical expectations about potential tensions between managerial reforms and administrative values using survey data (N = 453). All countries combine old and new forms of accountability requirements, while legal and financial accountability have not been replaced with results accountability. Switzerland and the Netherlands score highest on results accountability, though in combination with legal and financial accountability, which are dominant in Germany and Austria. Nation-specific characteristics seem more important for core values of public administration than generic characteristics of the Rechtsstaat model. Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2016.1210205 IS - 6 SP - 765 EP - 784 ET - 19 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Ruffing, Eva T1 - The transformative effects of Europeanization on national administrations JF - Public: ESADE's Institute of Public Governance and Management (IGDP) e-bulletin N2 - There is little doubt that the process of European integration has resulted in a complex system of multilevel governance. Much has been said about the promises and pitfalls of an ever-increasing delegation of powers to the European Union (EU). However, scholars have only recently started to grasp the transformative effects of the integration process on national administrations, which is particularly visible with regard to semi-autonomous national agencies. The multilevel governance architecture of the EU increasingly relies on the administrative capacities of national agencies - which profoundly affects the allocation of attention and resources within national agencies, the institutional architecture of national administrative systems through both direct and indirect pressure to create agencies, and most importantly, the autonomy of national agencies within their domestic politico-administrations. Taken together, we argue that involvement by national agencies in European administrative networks has a transformative effect on national politico-administrative systems. Y1 - 2014 UR - http://www.esade.edu/public/modules.php?name=news&idnew=1010&idissue=69&newlang=english VL - 2014 IS - 30.05. PB - Universität Ramon Llull CY - Barcelona ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Barlösius, Eva A1 - Döhler, Marian A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Philipps, Axel T1 - Governance staatlicher Forschung im Spannungsfeld von Staat, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft Y1 - 2013 UR - http://edok01.tib.uni-hannover.de/edoks/e01fb14/797457658.pdf N1 - Schlussbericht zum Forschungsprojekt „Ressortforschung unter Anpassungsdruck: Governance im Spannungsfeld von Staat, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft" PB - Leibniz Universität Hannover CY - Hannover ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Jann, Werner A1 - Bach, Tobias T1 - Behördenorganisation und Steuerungsbeziehungen bei der Umsetzung des Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetzes (EEG): Gutachten im Rahmen des Vorhabens "Rechtliche und instrumentelle Weiterentwicklung des EEG" Y1 - 2013 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Wegrich, Kai A1 - Bach, Tobias T1 - Unter Stress: Regierung und Verwaltung in stürmischen Zeiten T2 - Die Hauptstädter: Berlin 25 Jahre nach dem Fall der Mauer ; Die Hertie Berlin Studie 2014 Y1 - 2014 SN - 978-3-455-50339-5 SP - 203 EP - 253 PB - Hoffmann und Campe CY - Hamburg ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Philipps, Axel A1 - Barlösius, Eva A1 - Döhler, Marian T1 - Governance von Ressortforschungseinrichtungen T2 - Neue Governance der Wissenschaft : Reorganisation - externe Anforderungen - Medialisierung Y1 - 2013 SN - 978-3-8376-2272-0 SP - 139 EP - 162 PB - Transcript CY - Bielefeld ER - TY - BOOK A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Wegrich, Kai ED - Bach, Tobias ED - Wegrich, Kai T1 - The Blind Spots of Public Bureaucracy and the Politics of Non‐Coordination Y1 - 2018 SN - 978-3319766713 SN - 978-3-319-76672-0 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76672-0 PB - Palgrave Macmillan ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Wegrich, Kai ED - Christensen, Tom ED - Lægreid, Per T1 - Regulatory Reform, Accountability and Blame in Public Service Delivery: The Public Transport Crisis in Berlin T2 - The Routledge Handbook to Accountability and Welfare State Reforms in Europe N2 - Introduction Among the many promises of reforms of the ‘regulatory state’ type, the clarification of account - ability relations features prominently. While not always using the language of accountability, a major argument against the state as direct provider of a range of public services was that accountability relations were unclear: state providers of services such as telecommunications and transport were hybrids between commercial enterprises and public service providers that were largely self-regulatory in terms of service provision and technical safety (Lodge and Wegrich 2012). The governance of such enterprises allowed political logics to trump economic rationales, and it was unclear in how far the management of these companies should follow either a political or a managerial logic, as they had to provide ‘essential public services’ in an economically efficient way. Y1 - 2016 SN - 9781315612713 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315612713 PB - Routledge CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Veit, Sylvia A1 - Hustedt, Thurid A1 - Bach, Tobias T1 - Dynamics of change in internal policy advisory systems: the hybridization of advisory capacities in Germany JF - Policy Sciences N2 - Recent scholarship on advisory systems has focussed on the externalization of advisory capacities and sectoral dynamics of change, whereas changes of internal policy advisory systems have not yet been approached systematically. This article proposes an analytical concept for exploring change dynamics in internal policy advisory systems by means of three logics for assessing policy advice (political salience, credibility and representativeness). The approach is illustrated by analysing changes within the internal policy advisory system of the German federal government (1990–2015). The analysis relies on three original datasets on ministerial departments, research agencies and governmental advisory bodies. We find that the internal advisory system of the German federal government is characterized by a differentiated hybridization of advisory logics, which has changed the nature of policy advice. Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-016-9266-9 SN - 0032-2687 (print), 1573-0891 (online) VL - 50 IS - 1 SP - 85 EP - 103 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Boon, Jan A1 - Boye, Stefan A1 - Salomonsen Houlberg, Heidi A1 - Verhoest, Koen A1 - Wegrich, Kai T1 - In the Line of Fire: European Financial Regulators before, during, and after the Crisis JF - der moderne staat Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3224/dms.v12i1.03 VL - 12 IS - 1 SP - 5 EP - 29 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Wegrich, Kai ED - Andeweg, Rudy B. ED - Elgie, Robert ED - Helms, Ludger ED - Kaarbo, Juliet ED - Müller-Rommel, Ferdinand T1 - Politicians and Bureaucrats in Executive Government T2 - The Oxford Handbook of Political Executives Y1 - 2020 SN - 9780198809296 PB - Oxford University Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Wegrich, Kai T1 - Das Verhältnis von Regierung und Verwaltung aus internationaler Perspektive T2 - Black­box Exe­ku­ti­ve – Regie­rungs­leh­re in der Schweiz Y1 - 2019 SN - 9783038104018 SP - 65 EP - 87 PB - NZZ Libro CY - Zürich ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Hammerschmid, Gerhard A1 - Löffler, Lorenz T1 - More delegation, more political control? Politicization of senior-level appointments in 18 European countries JF - Policy and Administration N2 - This article contributes to the literature on the politicization of appointments to increase political control over public bureaucracies with often substantial managerial and policy autonomy. Using data from a large-scale executive survey from central government ministries and agencies in 18 European countries, the article provides a comprehensive cross-national and cross-organizational analysis of the autonomy-politicization conundrum and the drivers of the politicization of senior-level appointments. We find that national patterns of politicization correspond fairly well to country families as defined by administrative traditions, with some traditions being more coherent than others. At the organizational level, we find no evidence of efforts by politicians to compensate for extended autonomy by politicizing senior-level appointments, yet we provide evidence of differential effects of both formal and informal organizational characteristics on patterns of politicization. Our analyses show that politicization of senior appointments is lower in organizations with agency status, higher organizational social capital, higher financial autonomy and more extensive use of management tools. The article thereby not only offers comprehensive evidence of cross-country differences in politicization; it also adds to the literature on sub-national variation, by fleshing out an organizational perspective to the study of politicized appointments in the European context. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0952076718776356 VL - 1 SP - 3 EP - 23 ET - 35 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Wegrich, Kai T1 - The politics of blame avoidance in complex delegation structures: the public transport crisis in Berlin JF - European Political Science Review N2 - The article analyses the public attribution of blame and the use of presentational strategies of blame avoidance in complex delegation structures. We theorize and empirically demonstrate that complex delegation structures result in the diffusion of blame to multiple actors so that a clear allocation of responsibility becomes more difficult. The article shows that public attribution of blame follows a distinct temporal pattern in which politicians only gradually move into the centre of the blame storm. We also find that blame-takers deploy sequential patterns of presentational management and use blame shifting to other actors as a dominant strategy. However, the analysis suggests that complex delegation structures impose limitations on blame-takers’ use of blame avoidance strategies, and that sequential presentational management becomes less useful over time. The article uses media content analysis to study blame games during a major crisis of the public transport system in Berlin, Germany. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755773919000213 VL - 11 IS - 4 SP - 415 EP - 431 ER -